Inspiration is fragile. Remember those songs you lost when you couldn’t record an idea in time, the great riff that came and went, or the computer crash that trashed a fantastic solo?

The Memory Cable™ would have remembered—it’s your personal backup service that runs constantly in the background. This premium, 16-foot cable has a built-in, solid-state recorder designed by TASCAM’s engineers. Plug the cable into your guitar, press a button, and the cable records everything you play. It’s that simple.

If you play something you really like, press a button to close the existing file and start recording a new one. That way you’ll always know your best inspirations are at the file’s end.

Total recording time is over 13 continuous hours with the included 4GB microSD card, but a second mode can record only while you’re playing. The uncompressed, WAV-format files feature 44.1kHz, 16-bit resolution; thanks to the studio-quality A/D converters, if you record a “keeper” you can bring the file into any recording software, then build the song from there.

Although the Memory Cable™ doesn’t play back by itself, transferring files to a computer is easy. Most card readers can read a microSD card, and the Memory Cable™ includes a microSD-to-SD adapter (most computers have SD card slots). Many smartphones can also read a microSD card, as well as transfer the card data over USB.

Battery life is 8 hours from a rechargeable or standard AA battery, but there’s also a small battery that, while not necessary for operation, lasts for a year and powers an internal clock to time-stamp your files.

What’s best about the Memory Cable™ is that you’ll always have it at your fingertips—you need to use a cable anyway. You don’t have to grab a box, find another patch cable, hook it up, and navigate an operating system—plug in, turn on, done. The Memory Cable™ also works with keyboards, bass, electronic drums—even a mixer bus output to record a rehearsal session. And it’s ideal for re-amping, which we’ll cover in a future article.

Most importantly, the first time you don’t lose some great inspiration you’ll truly appreciate the Memory Cable™’s “inspiration insurance.” I certainly do: my next YouTube video is built around a riff that the Memory Cable™ remembered when I was testing it!